LAC exists to spread information about development issues and current events in Latin America in Aotearoa (New Zealand). Our main focus is the Latin America Report, which covers events related to development, human rights and the struggle against poverty and oppression in Latin America.

Free screening of “Viva São João”, by Andrucha Waddington, withGilberto Gil, Dominguinhos and others, at the Wellington Botanic Gardens, on Thursday,22nd February 2007. This event is being organized and promoted by the Cuba Street Carnival Trust inconjunction with the Embassy of Brazil in Wellington and the NZ Film Archive.

Follow up the Cuba Carnival (26-28th Feb)and find out what puts Cuba on the map in the quest for global health and see SALUD …At New Zealand Film Archive, 84 Taranki St, Wellington (entrance off Guzhnee St)Discussion following screening of film incl issues over community health in NZ.Further information contact Paul Bruce lac@apc.org.nz Tel 972 8699or NZ Film Archive Tel 384 7647¡Salud, 93 minutes,is produced and directed by Academy Award nominee Connie Field(The Life and Times of Rosie the Riveter; Freedom on My Mind) and co-produced by Gail Reed.http://www.saludthefilm.net/ns/main.html

VenezuelaIf you too want to be a "revolutionary tourist'' and ``join the wave ofbackpackers, artists, academics and politicians on a mission todiscover if Venezuela's President, Hugo Chavez, really is forging aradical alternative to neo-liberalism and capitalism" check out thethree solidarity brigades that the Australia Venezuela SolidarityNetwork are organising this year including the first one for May Dayat http://www.venezuelasolidarity.org/?q=node/40]also http://tinyurl.com/2yeg5aHabana BluesWorld Cinema Showcase film festival is featuring a Cuban film - Habana Blues - in this year’s festival.A captivating love letter to life on the ‘crazy isle’ of Cuba, Habana Blues follows a group of musicians struggling to make the big time. If that sounds like Buena Vista Social Club: the Return, be aware this is fiction – these young stallions play a vibrant hybrid of soul and rock, and their goal in life is to leave behind the politics of their impoverished island. Ruy and Tito are the Mick and Keith of the band who spend their days flogging everything from cigars to sombreros out of the back of Tito’s delicious red ‘52 Chevy. When their long-awaited break arrives in the guise of Spanish record producer Marta, their lives are thrown into turmoil by the tantalising prospect of a one-way ticket to Spain. For once they’ve left Cuba, they can never return.

Telecom 39th Auckland International Film Festival, July 13 - 29, 2007Telecom 36th Wellington Film Festival, July 20 - August 5, 2007Telecom 31st Dunedin International Film Festival, July 27 - August 12, 2007Telecom 31st Christchurch International Film Festival, August 2 - 19, 2007www.nzff.telecom.co.nz

NEWSGUATEMALA: WORKERS BURN MAQUILA

Dozens of laid-off workers looted and set fire to the GenesisFeliz Tex S.A. garment plant in Guatemala City on the afternoonof Jan. 20. The workers came to the plant to demand theirseverance pay. Finding no one at the factory, the workers decidedto seize apparel and machinery in compensation. Within minutesunit of the National Civil Police (PNC) arrived and dispersed thecrowd with tear gas, but before they left the workers started afire; firefighters spent two hours putting it out. No arrestswere made.

Venezuela's Chavez Sets Oil Fields Takeover for May:Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez announced the government’s planned takeover of the Orinoco belt oil fields, and the re-nationalization of the electricity sector at an international press conference yesterday. He also responded to U.S. President George W. Bush’s “concerns” over Venezuelan democracy.http://www.venezuelanalysis.com/news.php?newsno=2208

Ecuador won't recognize Occidental claim:Two-year-long dispute with the Los Angeles-based company led Ecuador to cancel its contract with Occidental, which produced about 100,000 barrels of crude daily in Ecuador, and seize its facilities.http://www.businessweek.com/ap/financialnews/D8N0DNC01.htm

Hugo Chávez is a man in a hurry, and this week's decision by the Venezuelannational assembly to grant him additional powers foreshadows the radicalchanges that are in the pipeline. President for the past eight years, Chávezhas only just begun to scratch the surface of the gigantic revolutionaryproject that lies ahead. There have been obvious successes. Unprecedentedsums of oil money have been diverted towards the country's poor majority,funding education and health programmes, and providing cheap food. Theresults are already on show. A freshly mobilised and alert population isbeginning to flex its muscles, taking part in political decision-makingthrough a myriad local councils and ad-hoc committees operating at manylevels. Nothing like this has happened in Latin America since the CubanRevolution nearly half a century ago. It is riveting stuff.

Yet all this energy and excitement has been channelled through newinstitutions, financed directly by the oil revenues, and essentiallyunmonitored. Again, this is a revolution in progress. At the same time, muchof the old, pre-revolutionary Venezuela still remains. The country'straditional infrastructure is plagued by bureaucracy and corruption, thetwin-headed disease inherited from the Spanish colonial era. Bureaucrats,and that means public servants in every ministry and ancient state entity,exist to ensure that nothing ever gets done, while corruption exists tolubricate their powers of inaction. What is true of the state is true ofprivate industry as well. So this week's "enabling" legislation will givegreater powers to the executive at the expense of the legislature, with thehope that Chávez will be able to push through some necessary changes. Atsome stage, the new institutions and the old bureaucracies will have to bemerged.

Is this road to dictatorship or the path to reasonable reform? The nature ofthe problem is familiar to political scientists, and certainly not new toLatin America. Where should the balance fall between the executive and thelegislature? Each country makes its choice, and revolutions provide anopportunity for the balance to be changed.

Allowing the Venezuelan president to issue executive orders is nothing new.It is permitted under the constitution of 1999, as under the previousconstitution. Chávez's recent predecessors availed themselves of a similarfacility from time to time, notably when dealing with economic and financialmatters. Even Thomas Shannon, the US diplomat in charge of Latin America,admitted in an unusually friendly comment that the enabling law was nothingnew. "It's something valid under the constitution (and) as with any tool ofdemocracy, it depends on how it is used."

So what is important here is a change in the nature of government ratherthan a madcap scheme to seize private assets, soak the rich, and nationaliseeverything in sight by presidential decree. Perhaps the most significant ofthe planned reforms is the provision of finance and teeth to the "communalcouncils" springing up in their thousands all over the country. The future"socialist democracy" of Venezuela will depend more on these grassrootsexpressions of the popular will than the national assembly in Caracas. Sincethe opposition parties foolishly boycotted the assembly elections, theentirely pro-Chávez assembly has a rather limited use.

For most of the past eight years, Chávez has moved ahead in response to theactions of others. The attempted coup d'etat of 2002, the oil strike of2003, and the recall referendum of 2004 all led to an acceleration of therevolutionary process. Now he is advancing under his own steam. We know thathe wants to retain the commanding heights of the economy, the traditionalambition of Latin American nationalists as well as old-fashioned socialdemocrats. That means oil and gas and electricity, and telecommunications.We know that he hopes to extend the land reform, the essential first steptowards rural development. We know too that he wants to improve taxcollection and to do something about gross inequality, the untackled evilthroughout Latin America except in Cuba. We also know that he is hostile tounbridled capitalism, and has made friendly remarks about cooperatives andother ways of organising the private sector.

Yet the Venezuelan future is still interestingly uncertain and opaque, forthe simple reason that Chávez is not a dictator and has never shown theslightest sign of wanting to become one. He has no blueprint that he seeksto impose on the country. He wants to extend press freedom, for example, notto reduce it, and, while curbing the power to make money of irresponsiblepress barons like Marcel Granier of RCTV, he has also put state funds intothe development of community radio and television stations, as well as moreambitious projects like Vive, the new cultural channel, and Telesur, theinternational news channel. These new lines of communication already providefresh opportunities for popular participation, the ultimate safeguard of hisregime and the source of all future programmes and policies.

.............A poll published in the main La Paz daily, La Razon, ayear after Bolivia's powerful indigenous movement tookcontrol of parliament, showed that Morales's approvalacross the major cities was 59% -- higher than hishistoric 53.7% vote in the December 2005 elections. Therate was higher in the countryside, where Morales'smain support base is.

This reflects the support that Bolivia's nationalrevolution, led by Morales and with Bolivia'sindigenous people as its core, has among the Bolivianmasses, who, having regained their spirit and dignityare fighting to liberate Bolivia and decolonise itsracist state structures.

A year of indigenous power

This strong support is in large part due to theprogress made on one of Morales's key election promises-- the nationalisation of hydrocarbons. Havingoverthrown two presidents in their struggle to regaincontrol over their natural resources, particularly gas,over 90% of Bolivians approved when Morales sent themilitary into the gas fields on May 1 to return controlof hydrocarbons to the state.

Six months later after intense negotiations, whichresulted in the resignation of hardline pro-nationalisation hydrocarbons minister Andres Soliz Radaand a war of words between the Bolivian government andBrazil's state oil company Petrobras, 44 new contractswere signed. The new rules meant that the state gainedcontrol over hydrocarbons, from below the groundthrough to the end of the industrialisation phase, andthe corporations were to become service providers. Thestate would receive 82% of the revenue, which thecorporations previously took for themselves.

The government also successfully renegotiated adoubling of the price for gas sold to Argentina, andhopes to do the same soon with Brazil.

The result -- nearly US$1.3 billion in revenue from gas(an increase of $635 million). Combined with a growthrate of 4.3%, a reduction of parliamentary salaries by50% and macroeconomic stability, the government hasbeen able to use this strong economic position to beginto deliver on some of its promises, reversing theimpact of neoliberalism in Bolivia.

Morales has personally traveled around the country toredistribute the gains from the gas nationalisation.These include (with substantial help from Cuba andVenezuela) 2000 Cuban doctors, 20 new hospitals, aliteracy campaign in which 73,000 out of 300,000participants have already graduated, the Juancito Pintoannual bonus for all school children under the age of10 to help cover the costs of schooling, and tractorsas part of the government land reform plan.

This high level of support has also allowed thegovernment to move forward with its "agrarianrevolution", violently opposed by the large landownerswho have begun to set up paramilitary groups.

Challenges ahead

While there were some important gains made inimplementing the government's economic plans over thepast year, its key political plank -- the ConstituentAssembly -- remains stalled by the opposition.

According to Morales, the Constituent Assembly "is thebest democratic instrument ... to profoundly change ourcountry. It is the best instrument to unify, tointegrate our national territory." He added that theassembly is "the hope of Bolivians to patent thenecessary structural transformations, and the changesin the economic and social sphere".

Three other key challenges the government faces arepushing forward with the industrialisation of gas andmining to maintain and further improve economicstability, better management at the microeconomic levelin order to ensure more resources and redistributedwealth reach those sectors and regions that need itmost, and better coordination in the face of the riseof a new opposition.

Morales noted that still pending in the process ofnationalising hydrocarbons was obtaining 50%-plus-1 ofthe shares in companies operating in Bolivia, and therefoundation of the state oil company YPFB, which isstill not in a position to carry out theindustrialisation of gas. The increased revenue fromthe nationalisation, as well as help from Venezuelanstate oil company PDVSA, through the newly formed jointproject Petroandina, will allow the government to moveahead on these tasks, Morales said.

Morales also used his one-year anniversary to announcethe "second nationalisation" of the mining industry.Last year, mining exports equaled $1.1 billion, ofwhich only 1.5% went into state coffers. Moralesproposed that at least half of this now go to thestate, while the exportation of raw minerals will belimited to give primacy to Bolivia's industrialisation.

To help this, the government proposed recoveringownership of the Vinto tin smelter, sold off illegallyunder previous neoliberal governments. The Moralesgovernment has already begun to rebuild the statemining company Comibol, having integrated 5000 ex-cooperative miners into the company.

National Coalition for Change

In order to ensure better management of the stateapparatus, particularly in the opposition-controlledregions, as well as coordination among the socialmovements and their representatives in parliament andthe Constituent Assembly, Morales initiated theNational Coalition for Change on January 23.

The coalition is to involve 16 national socialorganisations -- including indigenous, campesino andworkers' organisations -- and will "coordinate thesocial power of the social movements with the executiveand legislative power and the constituent delegates,and will fundamentally define the political,revolutionary, democratic and cultural line", explainedthe president of the lower house of parliament, RaulNovillo.

This coordination is necessary to confront the rise ofa new opposition, based in the pro-business civiccommittee of Santa Cruz and the prefectures of the foureastern departments (states) referred to as the "halfmoon". Raising the banner of autonomy in order tomaintain its hegemony over the east, the Santa Cruzelite (tied to the gas transnationals and the US) haveattempted to mobilise the predominately white middleand upper classes against the Morales government.

Stressing the need for social stability, furtheringeconomic improvements and defending autonomy within aclear framework of national unity and control ofessential areas -- such as natural resources, policeand taxes -- will be crucial to isolating this newopposition and winning over and consolidating largesections of the middle classes and the armed forces tosupporting Bolivia's revolution.

Similar structures are to be established at thedepartmental (or state) level from February, whichalong with departmental delegates selected by thenational government will help in coordination andorganisation at this level. Such coordination has beenimpeded because six out of nine prefectures arecontrolled by the right.

On January 24, the three opposition parties in theSenate united to elect one of their own as president ofthe upper house, National Unity senator JoseVillavicencio. This revival of the "mega coalition" ofthe neoliberal parties that sustained the previousgovernments is one more part of the oppositions plan toblock Morales's attempts to lead a democratic andcultural revolution.

That day, Bolpress reported that other official sourcessaid this new opposition directorate would ask for therevision of the parliamentary session that passed thenew agrarian reform law. Villavicencio has alsoannounced that the Senate would review another bill inthat session relating to cooperation with theVenezuelan military on Bolivian soil.

In response, Morales was quoted by the BolivianInformation Service on January 24 as saying that "theright, the neoliberals, the auctioneers have united,but there is no need for us to protest".

"The experience we have is that there are social forceswho are demanding their rights. Within this framework Iam sure that the people will identify if [the Senate]works against this process of change."

Morales recalled how the opposition had tried to blockthe passage of the agrarian reform law, as well as theratification of the gas contracts, by boycotting theSenate, and argued that "it was the mobilisation of thepeople that unblocked the Senate".

MEXICO: MARCH FOR "NEW SOCIAL PACT"

Tens of thousands of Mexicans filled Mexico City's huge Zocaloplaza on Jan. 31 in the first large demonstration against thecenter-right government of President Felipe Calderon Hinojosa,who took office on Dec. 1 and now faces popular anger over adramatic rise in the price of corn and other staples [see Update#884]. "Without corn, there's no country," the marchers chanted."We don't want PAN, we want tortillas." (The initials ofCalderon's National Action Party, PAN, form the Spanish for"bread.")

At the demonstration the organizers proclaimed the "Declarationof the Zocalo," which called for "broad social unity" to achievea "new social pact," including renegotiation of the agriculturalsections of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA); anemergency program to increase production; restrictions on priceincreases; punishment for hoarders; an emergency wage increase; apush to create jobs; and an end to repression of socialmovements. One participant was the sociologist Pablo GonzalezCasanova, a former rector of the Autonomous National Universityof Mexico (UNAM). Asked by reporters if the movement could turnback Calderon's neoliberal economic policies, he answered: "We'regoing to win, because now we are in a stage where neoliberalismdoesn't fool anyone.... The whole world knows clearly thatneoliberalism is one of the great lies of humanity...."

The march was called by a broad coalition of 150 labor unions andcampesino and farmer groups. The coalition included laborfederations like the National Workers Union (UNT) that split fromthe old Congress of Labor (CT), which is dominated by theformerly ruling Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI); butanother important component was PRI-affiliated groups likeNational Campesino Federation (CNC). The march organizersinsisted that the demonstration would not be partisan and barredpolitical speeches. But many protesters waited in the Zocalo forthe arrival of a second march around the same demands; this onewas led by Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, the center-left coalitioncandidate who narrowly lost the July 2 presidential race toCalderon, according to electoral authorities. [La Jornada(Mexico) 2/1/07]

The Costs of Rising Tortilla Prices in MexicoEnrique C. Ochoa

Spurred by the increasing use of corn for ethanol,tortilla prices in Mexico have skyrocketed by more that50 percent in many regions. Mexicans protested thesesharp increases, forcing the government of FelipeCalderon to publicly promise to punish speculators andto call for increased corn imports. Calderon alsonegotiated a pact with the largest tortilla producersto cap the price of tortillas at 8.5 pesos perkilogram - a 40 percent price increase. However fewconsumers will benefit from these efforts. Instead,WALMART, the large corporations that dominate theindustry, and the U.S. transnational companies thatsupply Mexico with corn are likely to be thebeneficiaries.

The tortilla price hikes and the government's responseswill be shouldered by Mexico's poorest consumers andproducers. Tortilla prices have increased by more than10 times the recent increase in the minimum wage. Insome states a kilogram of tortillas accounts for asmuch as one-third of the daily minimum wage. Increasingimports is likely to further devastate Mexican cornproducers, who have been especially hard hit since the1994 implementation of NAFTA.

The Mexican government has not always been willing tosacrifice the poor for giant corporations. In theMexican Revolution in the early 20th century, Mexico'sworking classes demanded social justice. SuccessiveMexican administrations responded by granting land tothe landless and subsidizing the production oftortillas. As Mexican governments sought to transformthe economy through industrialization and large scaleagriculture, peasant and worker resistance led to thecreation of a government agency with a chain of storesto keep basic food prices within the reach ofconsumers. This agency established a minimum producerprice and purchased staple grains directly from smallproducers. While the goal was not to eradicate povertyor challenge the market system, this authoritarianresponsiveness provided a basic security net formillions of Mexicans.

These social policies were greatly weakened by Mexico'seconomic crisis of the 1980s and the U.S.-inspiredresponse. Social programs were slashed and foodsubsidies eliminated as private businesses were hailedas the solution to Mexico's economic ills. This has ledto a virtual abandonment of the countryside. Mexico'sfarm employment has been reduced by 30 percent sincethe implementation of NAFTA. According to a study theInternational Relations Center, between 1999 and 2004the price paid Mexican corn farmers fell by about halfas U.S. imports flooded Mexican markets. While forcenturies Mexico's campesinos have produced maize andother basic staples, their lands are increasinglyprivatized or abandoned and are forced to migrate insearch of better opportunities.

Among the major beneficiaries of the governmentpolicies in the 1980s and 1990s, and of recent pricehikes, is the Mexican tortilla giant Grupo MASECA(GRUMA). Founded in 1949, GRUMA pioneered an industrialprocess of making corn flour and tortillas. Whensubsidies to maize and tortillas plummeted, GRUMAthrived as Mexican President Carlos Salinas divertedstate corn stocks away from smaller subsidized tortillafactories and to the ready-mix tortilla industry, suchas GRUMA, openly favoring them as more efficientproducers.

GRUMA's dominance of the Mexican market stimulated itsinternational expansion. GRUMA controls approximately65 percent of the overall Central American corn flourmarket. In the U.S., with Mission and Guerrero as theirkey brands, GRUMA controls about 70% of the tortillamarket in Southern California. It operates 13industrial plants in the U.S including the largesttortilla factory in the world in Rancho Cucamonga.GRUMA has benefited from its strategic alliance withArcher Daniel's Midland, one of the world's largestagribusinesses and a key recipient of U.S. cornsubsidies.

WALMART, Mexico's number one private employer andleading retailer, also stands to gain from the pricehikes. In its nearly 800 stores, WALMART has notraised the price of tortillas as much as otherretailers. Its dominance of the market allows it toundersell smaller stores thereby attracting morecustomers. Smaller and national retailers are likelyto be the casualties, enabling WALMART to consolidateits monopolistic hold over the Mexican market.

The current crisis provides an opportunity foragribusiness to strengthen their dominance of theMexican countryside. Several large producerorganizations and biotech firms have called on thegovernment to authorize the planting of geneticallymodified corn to increase yield in Mexico. In thesearch for a quick fix, however, such a policy woulddeepen Mexico's food dependence.

The lack of food sovereignty has had disastrousconsequences for Mexicans. According to Laura Carlsenof the International Relations Center, the Mexicangovernment recently reported that 12.7 percent ofchildren under age five are chronically malnourished.In the countryside, the percent is nearly double. Theincreases in the price of tortillas, heightens the riskof malnutrition. Hector Bourges Rodriguez, thedirector of Nutrition of the National Institute ofMedical Sciences and Nutrition, reports that tortillasare the one food item in the Mexican diet that deliverthe greatest amount of nutritional components.Increasing the price could lead to the furtherdeteriorization of the Mexican diet.

The recent price increases of tortillas in Mexico,therefore, are not mere market adjustments. They haveprofound implications for who controls Mexico's basicfood staple. Long-term solutions to price increasesmust be rooted in policies that increase Mexico's foodsovereignty and give more control to local campesinoproducers and consumers. Short-term panaceas thatbenefit WALMART, GRUMA, and U.S. agribusiness will notimprove the standard of living of the average Mexican;instead, they may lead to greater malnutrition andinstability.

*Enrique C. Ochoa is a professor of History at theCalifornia State University, Los Angeles and the2006-07 Weglyn Chair of Multicultural Studies at CalPoly Pomona. The author of Feeding Mexico: ThePolitical Uses of Food Since 1910 (2000), he iscurrently writing a book on the tortilla industry inMexico and Los Angeles.

Chavez a threat to democracy, US intelligence chief says:Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez exports a form of "radical populism" throughout Latin America that poses a threat to democracy, the top US intelligence official said Tuesday. John Negroponte, during hearings on his nomination to become deputy secretary of statehttp://www.ichblog.eu/content/view/234/52/

Viva Chavez: Venezuela is the hip new socialist utopia

Leftists are flocking to see a country being transformed, writes RoryCarroll in Caracas

TO SCEPTICS, they are naive Westerners who would not recognisecommunist tyranny if it expropriated their sandals.

"Malodorous, left-wing, US and European peace creeps armed with Mom'scredit card and brand new Birkenstocks," sneered the American Thinker,a right-wing magazine.

To the Venezuelan Government, however, they are valued friends who arewitnessing first-hand the positive changes sweeping the slums andcountryside and who return home, a volunteer army of ambassadors, tospread the good news.

Meet the revolutionary tourists, a wave of backpackers, artists,academics and politicians on a mission to discover if Venezuela'sPresident, Hugo Chavez, really is forging a radical alternative toneo-liberalism and capitalism.

>From a trickle, a few years ago, there are now thousands. They travelindividually and on package tours, exploring a purported left-wingmecca, and their ranks are set to swell now Mr Chavez is acceleratinghis self-styled revolution after last month's landslide re-election."Socialism or death - I swear it," he said last week, and declaredhimself a communist.

"It's just amazing being here. There is so much vibe and passion,there is truly a sense of revolution," gushed Lucy Dale, 20, auniversity student from Chicago on a 17-day trip. "I want to return todo volunteer work."

Global Exchange, a San Francisco group that doubles as a travel agent,organised trips for almost 500 Americans last year, five times the2003 figure, said Jojo Farrell, its Venezuela liaison worker.

"We saw healthy, happy, well-dressed children taught by well-qualifiedteachers who get paid a decent salary. These are opportunities thatdid not exist for poor people before Chavez," said Kate Young, whotravelled with the Rotary Foundation.

Others hail Caracas and its alliance with other left-wing governmentsfor loosening the US's traditional grip on the region.

"We need checks and balances to US unilateralism, and any good NorthAmerican would laud Chavez for doing that," said Clif Roberts, aCalifornian writer who stayed on in Venezuela after attending a poetryfestival.

Visiting celebrities such as the actor Danny Glover, the singer HarryBelafonte and the anti-Iraq war activist Cindy Sheehan, echo thesentiment.

Many enthusiasts set up solidarity groups when they return home andrecord their impressions in blogs, amplifying the message sent out byVenezuela's embassies and information offices.

The aim is to correct alleged mainstream media distortion depicting MrChavez as an autocratic megalomaniac.

"The UK media is very disappointing, always a negative slant," saidRod Finlayson, 62, a British union official who was thrilled by thenationalisations and cultural events. "Bach in the slums. Stuff youcould only dream about."

Dreaming, say some critics, is the problem. Instead of investigatingcomplexities, such as the corruption and mismanagement underminingsome social programs, visitors sleepwalk through government spin andnever hear allegations that Venezuela's oil bonanza is being wasted orthat democracy is being smothered.

Mr Finlayson said his delegation ignored such voices because the goalwas to express solidarity, not investigate. But the group didencounter some Chavez critics: walking through a wealthy district ofCaracas, it was pelted with eggs.

Some groups, such as those travelling with Global Exchange, meetopposition figures and hear claims that Mr Chavez is hoarding power bycollapsing his movement into a single socialist party, not renewingthe licence of an opposition-aligned TV station and plotting toabolish limits on terms of office.

"I was encouraged by what I saw in Venezuela but the focus on oneperson as the source of hope strikes me as unfortunate," said SarahGelder, an editor of the Seattle-based magazine Yes!.

Another left-wing journalist, Monica Vera, hailed the country as aprogressive beacon but voiced unease: "I just hope it continues onthat track."